Category Archives: motor

Go Out is an especially great Japanese magazine for the outdoor gear obsessed. Each issue packs in an overwhelming amount of equipment and apparel, from vintage finds to wildly exclusive Japanese-brand items. In addition to their monthly issues Go Out also publishes a series of style guides where each book focuses on either decadently styled base camps, homes, fashion, or even automobiles for adventuring in. This Summer they’ve published a best-of archive from 2013-2017 which I would love to get my hands on if I can track down a copy, more info on that here.

The Mk II Golf has been a longtime favorite chassis but the Country model is one that I don’t recall coming across at any East Coast Volkswagen show I’ve been to. Offroad features included front and rear guards, improved clearance, skid plate, and of course four-wheel Syncro drive. Fittingly pictured in these marketing photos in the classic ‘Montana Green’ paint. It might not be the adventuremobile a Syncro Westy may be but it still looks like a lot of fun to me.

In 1996 Volkswagen produced 254 Golf’s in a crazy patchwork of colored panels. In my dub days I had only come across a few between shows and meets and only until recently even thought to look into how they came to be. This article here gives a nice history lesson for anyone interested in the most unusual production Volkswagen.

Bill Greene has an amazing collection of 300+ photographs shot between 1950 and 1978 of enduro races, trials riding, desert hare scrambles, and then some. Clicking through every one of them makes me want to watch On Any Sunday again and well, maybe even get a bike. Check it out here.

Covers from Volkswagen’s quarterly magazine Small World which ran from 1962 to 1984, see the rest at The Samba. I’ve always loved Volkswagens, the last car I owned was a turbo gti but I’d love to own an older (mk II) model one day. Speaking of adventuring by volkswagen, if you aren’t already following Foster’s adventures in his Syncro I highly recommend it!

Stills taken from the 1962 short documentary Vive Le Tour, which someone was nice enough to upload a subtitled version onto youtube: parts 1 and 2. These festive trucks proceed the peloton throwing out all kinds of free stuff to spectators posted along the day’s stage. This year’s caravan was 20km long (about 12.5 miles) and consisted of 160 cars, it took 45 minutes for the entire thing to pass by.

I won’t guarantee that painting your car or bike in a shade of British Racing Green (BRG, for short) will make it go faster but it will certainly class it up a bit. The color found association with British motorsports during the Gordon Bennett Cup in which national teams were required to enter their native machines painted in an established national color, the colors on Union Jack happened to have already been claimed by a few other countries. Other national road going colors include Italy’s rosso corsa and Germany’s raw silver arrows.

A derny is small motorbike that is used in track and road racing to pace cyclists up to high speeds, usually driven by a larger fellow for more effective drafting of the rider behind. Though you won’t see derny’s in tons of races today the popular Kieren race use them to bring up the group of riders up to set pace and then rides up the bank to allow a final sprint to ensue. If you’re lucky enough to live in a European city that hosts an upcoming six-day race event you’ll be able to catch some derny paced track races in person.

Pictured: some earlier bulky pacing bikes used on velodromes and more streamlined versions with handlebar mounted gas tanks in use on the Bordeaux-Paris.